Kimball remained the creature's sole owner, while Barnum leased it for $12.50 a week. Nevertheless, Barnum believed that the relic would draw the public to the museum. Barnum had a naturalist examine it who would not attest to its authenticity. Ĭaptain Edes' son took possession of the mermaid and sold it to Moses Kimball of the Boston Museum in 1842, and he brought it to New York City that summer to show it to P. An etching of it was made by artist George Cruikshank in 1822. Limbird in the Mirror, and displayed the Turf Coffee-house, St. The mermaid was displayed in London in 1822, advertised in a publication by J. It was possibly a composite of a "blue-faced monkey and a salmon" in this case. Either way, the mermaid is believed to be one of many being manufactured commercially in Japan, by fishermen with a sense of humor as well as profit-mindedness. Other accounts say a captain of an American whaler bought it for $5,000 in Batavia, Dutch Indonesia. Īmerican sea captain Samuel Barrett Edes bought Barnum's "mermaid" from Japanese sailors in 1822 for $6,000, using money from the ship's expense account. Its mouth was open, its tail turned over, and its arms thrown up, giving it the appearance of having died in great agony," a significant departure from traditional depictions of mermaids as attractive creatures. History īarnum, in his autobiography, described the mermaid as "an ugly dried-up, black-looking diminutive specimen, about 3 feet long. Barnum exhibited the original in Barnum's American Museum in New York in 1842, but it then disappeared-likely destroyed in one of the many fires that destroyed parts of Barnum's collections. Several replicas and variations have also been made and exhibited under similar names and pretexts. This mermaid was supposedly caught near the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific. The right hand was against the right cheek, and the left tucked under its lower left jaw. The mouth was wide open with its teeth bared. The original had fish scales with animal hair superimposed on its body and pendulous breasts on its chest. It was a common feature of sideshows where it was presented as the mummified body of a creature that was supposedly half mammal and half fish, a version of a mermaid. The Fiji mermaid (also Feejee mermaid) was an object composed of the torso and head of a juvenile monkey sewn to the back half of a fish. ― Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
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